Sanction
by thread-of-string
Summary: Ah, revenge. She has a damaged arm, and she's really looking forward to using it on Howe.  A series of vignettes
1. One

_Note: This can be read as part of the same universe as _Immolation_ or not. Minor details may be changed based on my unpredictable whims. Alternatively, this can behave as an entirely independent piece. _

**I: **

Upon waking up in a bonafide bed, Fainne's first thought is that it must all have been a bad dream. There was no attack on Highever, no battle at Ostagar – or if there was, not one she was in – and definitely no darkspawn at the top of the Tower of Ishal. It's a beautiful, hopeful dream, countered by the weariness in her muscles, the pain in her chest, the throb of her bad arm. Still, she squeezes her eyes shut, praying that when she opens them, Mother will be there, smiling.

It's not Mother. It's the girl from the Wilds, and she's not smiling. She looks rather bored. "So, you awaken. I told your friend he had nothing to worry about."

"You're -"

"Morrigan," she says. She takes Fainne's bad arm in her hands, running one over the mounds and pockets of skin. "Tis ugly, to be sure, but Mother has placed some healing magic on it. I can assume it shall work better now than previously." She drops the arm as Fainne sits up, moving away. "Now, best you clothe yourself and see to your friend before he throws himself in the river from grief."

Slowly, carefully, Fainne start to pull on your leathers. "My friend?" She struggles to place someone in that space, but the only one who comes to mind is Roland. Poor, dead Roland. Her chest constricts, but as she's squeezing into her cuirass, she remembers another man, leaner, more prone to laughter. "You mean Alistair?"

"The infantile, brooding one, yes," says Morrigan.

The witch's nonchalance, the pounding in Fainne's head, the dull thrum of pain in her arm, it's making her irritable. "Why am I here?"

This finally manages to shake the boredom from Morrigan's face. Her eyes widen. "Surely you recall what happened?" Fainne stares at her blankly. "The man who was supposed to answer your beacon quit the field. Nearly all were slain."

Fainne wishes from the deepest depths of her soul that she could feel something other than utterly exhausted. She wishes grief would come and wrap around her like a funeral shroud. Failing that, she wishes that she could at least feel guilty, feel pity, feel something. The king is dead. The Wardens are dead. It should matter. It should matter to her. Somehow, though, these things, they pale in comparison to what came before. Patriotism should come into effect. It doesn't.

_My family is dead_. She whispers these words in the back of her mind. Only then does she feel a sharp burst of grief in her chest.

Fainne says, "I see." Then, pulling on her greaves, says, "Thank you Morrigan." She doesn't wait for the witch to stammer through her words. The door swings shut between them.

Alistair stands before the water, his back to the hut. Morrigan's mother is beside him, arms crossed, looking terribly unimpressed. Seeing Fainne, she says, "See boy, I told you she would live."

When he turns, that's when Fainne starts to feel something. It's faint, some small pop of emotion deep in her belly, brought on by the look of absolute relief colouring his features. "You're – you're alive. I didn't think – you were so badly injured..." His face crumples on itself. "Duncan and the rest... they're all dead."

And for all that the conversation is important, for all that the army is important, and the Blight, and the treaties and the Grey Wardens, she can't help but watch Alistair, especially as the two of them set out with witch and mabari in tow. His shoulders are slumped, and the lines of his face drag down. There are no tears on his face, but she knows that they're in there, buried beneath armour thicker than dragonbone, hidden behind his heart, and that anyone who wants to see them is either going to have to rip it out, or get inside.

She knows this, because it's just as true for herself.


	2. Two

**II:**

She's agreed to head to Redcliffe first. She'd love to say that it was political thinking that drove her to this decision. But while it's true that Arl Eamon is sure to have forces she can muster against the darkspawn, that he's a favoured voice in the Landsmeet (though, a niggling voice tells her, perhaps not so much as Teyrn Cousland had been), really, she goes to him because he'll know what Howe is up to. More than likely, he'll know where Howe is.

Ah, revenge. She has a damaged arm, and she's really looking forward to using it on Howe. Preferably with armed blade, but she's not terribly picky.

These aren't the thoughts one is supposed to have when one is trying to end a Blight. She knows that. As one of two remaining Grey Wardens, it's her job to combat the horde. Now that, somehow, she's been elected leader of the merry band, she should be focusing all her time and energy on strategy, on alliances, on bolstering morale. Really, though, her morale can't get much lower. She's got a cloistered sister, an apostate, a mabari hound, a qunari, and an almost-Templar-slash-Grey Warden. At this point, revenge is the only thing keeping her going.

That, and, well. Fainne's eyes slide to where Alistair is walking ahead of her. It's not that they're friends, exactly. It's not that she pities him. It's that she understands him. From what little information she's been able to fish out of him, he was bastard born and raised by Arl Eamon – only to be shipped out to the Chantry when he was of age. The Grey Wardens were his family, and he lost them all to betrayal. In this respect, they are one in the same.

He also in some way reminds her of Fergus – the Fergus who wasn't heir to a teyrnir, and instead only her big brother. The thought winds her, makes her breath push from her chest all at once, and she wonders if it'll ever get any easier to think of them. She doubts it, but she can't help the comparison. Alistair, he shields her in a fight the way Fergus did, he watches her out of the corner of his eye like Fergus did, though with Fergus it was because he was suspicious of her intentions, always. With Alistair, it's like he's worried she'll suddenly snuff out of existence and he'll be left all alone.

And, of course, he consoled her in the night, when she woke screaming from nightmares. He explained, patiently, the first time that these dreams are part of being a Grey Warden. Dreams of the horde, of the archdemon, of some language not meant for the tongues of men or elves or dwarves or anything besides darkpawn, these dreams will haunt Fainne for the rest of her life. He told her of his first dreams, of how they frightened him, and she thanked him.

This moment of bonding, it doesn't help when, night after night, she continues to dream, and scream, and weep where nobody can see. She wakes, drenched in her own sweat, hand clamouring for her sword, her other seizing in pain, her body tense and ready to flee some invisible assailant. Once, on a particularly bad night, he and Leliana had crowded around the flap of Fainne's tent until finally he'd crawled in and shaken her awake. She put a knife to his neck too quickly for him to stop her, hard enough to draw blood. He stared at her, hands raised in surrender, eyes wide with concern.

"You were having a nightmare," he said, and the silent accusation was, _you've been having a lot of them, more than a lot, more than me._

But she can't tell him that it's not darkspawn she's dreaming of, that it's alien hands on her body, and Oren's cold skin, and the gash at Nan's neck leering at her like a grotesque smile, and her father's blood on her mother's hands. So she shrugs every time it comes up, and brushes it off.

Today, he falls back beside her, resting a hand on Tergus' head. "You've certainly given your mabari an interesting name," he says, "though I wouldn't count on it to strike fear into our enemies."

"It started as a joke," Fainne explains. "I didn't intend for it to stick, but he seemed to like it. Isn't that right, boy?" At this, Tergus lets out a happy yip.

"A joke?" asks Alistair.

"My brother wanted to name him Sarim," she says, then stops. Sarim Cousland was the first of her family to hold Highever. Fergus thought it would be a name suited to a mabari hound, that it would speak of familial pride, that would hopefully spur on the dog in a fight. Fainne replied that she was going to name the mabari Tergus, as a diminutive of _Teyrn Fergus_, and the mabari, calling on the powers of Fergus' huge ego, would surely conquer in battle. To tell this to Alistair would be to tell him... everything. She's not prepared for that.

Now, she's simply Fainne. The Lady Cousland died with her parents.

So she says, "But I chose Tergus instead, and the mabari liked it."

"Your brother?" says Alistair. "The one that...?" He stops, looking sympathetically down at Fainne, unease colouring his whole stance.

"The one that died in the Wilds," she says, her tone flat and empty. Once they reached Lothering, she'd searched for some sign of him. There was none. "Or if he didn't, he probably wishes he had, now."

Alistair winces, bringing a hand up to scratch the back of his neck. It's becoming rapidly apparent to Fainne that he does this when he's feeling awkward. "I'm sorry," he says. "For bringing it up." When she doesn't reply, he goes silent, darting quick looks at her.

They walk like that for a long time.


End file.
